


The Hollow Men

by Brisance



Series: Red Queen's Race [2]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Gen, Novelization, Profanity, Rewrite, Violence, the divergence is fixing bioware's mistakes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-18
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-10-02 19:28:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10225430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brisance/pseuds/Brisance
Summary: After Commander Shepard's victory at Battle of the Citadel, the galactic invasion has been thwarted; and yet something stirs in the newfound peace. On the edges of civilized space, entire human colonies are disappearing without a trace, leaving the Alliance military mystified. In order to uncover this unknown threat, Shepard finds herself forced to cooperate with a powerful foe. The deal they offer may yet save humanity, even if it sounds like a suicide mission - but even Shepard seems less an ally, and more like a prisoner of war...(Novelization of the Mass Effect series. Paragon/Paragade Fem!Shep, eventual Shep/Garrus.)





	1. Caught In the Birkenhead Drill

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's to say about this? We all know what happens in this chapter. It was a ton of fun to write, though.

> “That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain…”  
>  -William Shakespeare

  
  


          The door to the cargo bay won’t close.  
          A trivial enough matter for a starship, let alone a state-of-the-art prototype frigate serving in the Systems Alliance. It had taken almost a day before anyone had noticed in the first place. The engineers she contacted over comm had assured her that it would be an easy fix. Everyone on board had accepted it. The cargo bay wasn’t a place that begged privacy. Life went on.  
          Except for Tali’Zorah nar Rayya.  
          And so here they stand: Commander Claire Shepard, commanding officer of the SSV Normandy, watching the two feet sticking out of the wall as Tali crawls halfway in the maintenance shaft to rummage through the door’s inner workings. Knocks and snaps come from inside, and then an aggravated sigh from the quarian herself. It sounds strangely synthetic, as if it is filtered through a speaker – because it is.  
          “Tali,” Shepard starts, watching the three-toed feet brace against the floor as Tali pushes herself further inside. “You don’t have to fix this. Alliance mechanics are going to get to it the second we go back to the Citadel. We can manage until then.”  
          “Absolutely not.” Tali’s voice is muffled. “When you live all your life on board a ship like a quarian you learn how much you need to stay on top of this. Small problems now are big problems later. My people would be ashamed of me if I were to leave this as if it were nothing!”  
          Shepard laughs a little, shaking her head. Truthfully, it’s not as if she has anything better to do.  
          A soft beep chirps out, and Shepard looks down. A tap on her left arm activates the supercomputer chip embedded there, and the holographic omni-tool appears. The screen hovering just above her arm displays a notification for her schedule; she’s due for a report back to the Council in fifteen minutes.  
           _Yep. Watching Tali fight the door is better use of my time,_ she thinks as she dismisses the alert. These reports were closer to empty propaganda. She’ll go to the Normandy’s comm room, open a holographic channel, and tell the Council that she had found no signs of geth activity. If the public got too uneasy – like every time the tabloids swore someone saw a rogue AI in a Citadel back alley – they would use her latest message to soothe the unrest.  
          Just like the other countless times she’d done it.  
          N7 Special Forces. Hero of the Skyllian Blitz. Hero of the Battle of the Citadel. _And they have me chasing my tail._  
          She’d already missed one of these reports, purely by accident. Liara had been mortified, taking it upon herself to create a schedule to load on Shepard’s omni-tool and alert her to appointments. With no missions incoming until this throwaway assignment was completed, creating a schedule seemed excessive – but Shepard didn’t have the heart to tell Liara no.  
          Liara and Tali. The two women had remained aboard the Normandy even now, when no obligation remained. Tali was especially confusing; she’d first left her reclusive people to go on her Pilgrimage, the quarian rite of adulthood. She’d long since found her tribute to present to her people when she returned. And yet – every day passes where she doesn’t leave. Shepard wants to know what’s keeping her, but still it feels too personal to ask.  
          The other aliens on board had long since left; as a mercenary, Wrex had moved on to another job almost immediately after the Battle of the Citadel. Garrus had chosen to stay at the capital and pursue a Spectre appointment. She hasn’t spoken to either since starting this month-long mission, but now that they’re on her mind…  
           _I hope you two are doing well._  
          “Shepard! What color?!” Tali’s voice calls from inside the maintenance shaft.  
          Shepard glances up at the light next to the door. “Oh! It’s green!”  
          “Yes!” Tali clumsily shimmies her way out of the shaft. The cloth and plastic polymer of her form-fitting environmental suit is smeared with dust. “Blech. I’ll have to clean my filters tonight.”  
          Her large pale eyes are barely visible behind the closed visor of her helmet. They widen even more when she sees the calm green light by the door. She does a little dance and points. “Look, Shepard! I fixed it –”  
          The world roars and shakes so hard that Shepard is knocked off her feet, falling forward and catching herself against the door. The lights go out as the ship tremors again, bouncing her against the floor, slamming the walls against her.  
          Then it all goes still.  
          One by one, a path of lights switch on along the bottom of the walls. Emergency lights, connected to the ship’s priority power source. Used when the Normandy’s VI determines loss of major function.  
           _Used when the ship is dying._  
          “Tali! Are you okay?!” Shepard staggers to her feet. The overhead lights flicker on and off.  
          “I – I’m fine!” Tali’s voice is shrill, panicky. “No suit breaches!”  
          Shepard staggers to her nearby ship locker. It’s pure luck that they were already in the cargo bay, next to the hardsuit gear. “Listen to me. Follow the emergency path to the escape pods. The crew will help you.”  
          Tali doesn’t answer, but there’s no panic, no arguing. As a quarian, she understands the implications of a mid-space ship evacuation better than anyone. Shepard scrambles to get her gear on and locked. “Six people to a pod; there’s more than enough for the entire crew. I’m going on one last sweep to make sure we have everyone.”  
          “Right!” Tali says, nodding her helmeted head and taking off. “Be careful, Shepard!”  
          “I promise!” Shepard answers, grabbing the helmet and locking it on. _Guess all those fast-prep drills finally came in handy._ She’s just turning around when a voice calls her name.  
          Liara appears, wide-eyed and panting. From further back, Shepard can see an orange glow flickering across the stairs behind the elevator.  
          “Shepard, we’re dead in the water,” Liara says, shaking her head.  
          “We’ll be fine,” Shepard says in an even voice. She moves past the other woman, heading for the stairs.  
          “Will the Alliance come for us?”  
          “Deploying the escape pods lights up every comm buoy on this side of the galaxy,” Shepard says. “They won’t abandon us. Go help the crew evacuate, and then get yourself to a pod.”  
          “N-no!” Liara walks quickly behind her. “Ashley said Joker refuses to go, and… I won’t leave either. I won’t go without you.”  
          “Liara.” Shepard glances back. _She told me once that she had feelings for me. An asari, in love with me._ Shepard doesn’t know if that was still true or not – although she has her suspicions. No matter the reasons, she can’t let Liara keep herself in danger. “I’ll take care of Joker. You need to get to safety.” Liara still doesn’t move, so Shepard puts the iron back in her voice: “Go. Now.”  
          Liara hesitates for a bare second longer – then she turns and runs up the stairs, back out of sight.  
          Shepard begins moving, up the stairs and onwards deeper into the ship. Her helmet is connected to the Normandy VI though her hardsuit, and it displays notifications across the HUD as she walks. Escape pods are launching. Emergency systems active. SOS signals sent to every relay in range. The ship VI displays diagrams of the Normandy on every available monitor, noting escape routes and damaged sections.  
          On each screen, the entire middle of the ship glows red.  
          Wrenching open a set of doors, Shepard finds herself out of the dead dark. The mess deck burns orange and flickering as the flames slowly eat away the ship. Wires hang from the ceiling, sparking and snapping. Entire sections of the wall and ceiling are twisted and collapsing. A pipe hangs from the ceiling, spraying coolant.  
          There’s no sign of any crew, Alliance or otherwise. A clean evacuation – Ashley Williams has done well as Shepard’s acting lieutenant. But there’s still the matter of her pilot, who will be found at the helm – past the major damage.  
          None of the dampening systems are online, and so the fires intensify the farther she goes. The hardsuit will only protect her so much – if it gets much worse she’s better off finding an airlock and crawling around outside in zero G’s.  
          “Mayday, mayday, this is the SSV Normandy of the Systems Alliance. Mayday, this is Flight Lieutenant Jeff Moreau, we have sustained heavy damage – ”  
          “Joker!” she half shouts through the comm. “Get your EVA on and get to a damn escape pod!”  
          “ – we have sustained heavy damage from an unknown target, repeat, we have sustained – ”  
          Shepard clenches her jaw. He’s blatantly ignoring her orders, for one, but –  
           _Unknown target?_ In this galaxy, there are no unknown targets. Even rare races, or those that keep out of Citadel space – they’re all still known quantities, even here in the Omega nebula, the heart of Terminus sector. This far into wild space, the ship’s shields would have been running on full, and even then only a surprise blow could catch Joker off guard.  
           _So, Shepard. What can hide long enough to get the drop on your pilot? What weapon can blow through standard military shields and cripple a ship in one blow?_  
          Her only answer is the cold pit in her stomach.  
          The wall and upper portion has collapsed completely over the short stairs that lead to the CIC. The wreckage is enveloped in fire, and the door beyond is only barely visible. Even with her armor the way is blocked. Grinding her teeth, Shepard backtracks to the other side, taking the stairs through the armory and finally reaching the pass-through to the CIC. The doors shudder as they attempt to open, but only barely move. Shepard wrenches her fingers in the tiny crack between them and heaves.  
          The air seems to suck past her. The doors fly open. She is pulled forward –  
          A hiss sounds in her ear as the hardsuit’s internal air source kicks on, triggered by her sudden change in environment. The failing gravity is barely enough to hold her to the floor –  
          The heart of the Normandy is gone.  
          The entire upper half of the ship is blown away completely. Lifeless human bodies and countless fragments of ship drift peacefully away, out into the open expanse of space.  
          Directly above her – filling the entire gaping view where the ceiling should be – is the planet Alchera. The planetshine baths the entire blackened CIC in a pale glow.  
           _Icy. Uninhabited. Joker was using its gravity to slingshot the Normandy and save us some fuel._  
          With nothing between her and that planet but a combat hardsuit, something stirs within Shepard – a thread of primal fear.  
           _Focus. Your ship’s more or less cut in two, and your pilot’s about to get himself killed._  
          Shepard starts the walk across the dead CIC, gaining speed in the lowered gravity. The computers and monitors along the perimeter of the room are twisted, charred. To her right, the giant holographic galaxy map flickers once faintly. Then it is dark.  
          Ahead, the CIC narrows down to the main airlock section – the escape pod there is ready and undamaged. _So he doesn’t have an excuse._  
          As she gets closer Shepard realizes the doors to the flight deck are wide open, leaving it exposed. The view inside is hidden behind a veil of blue waves – the ship’s mass effect fields, trying desperately to keep the helm pressurized and breathable. But after seeing the CIC – or rather, the lack of it – Shepard can only hope that the Normandy will keep the fields going before Joker’s luck finally runs out.  
          “Joker!” she shouts as she steps through the mass effect field, back into breathable air and simulated gravity. “What the hell are you doing? Go!”  
          Thankfully, Joker has his EVA suit on, working furiously at the console. His helmet, however, sits the console’s top – he hasn’t even bothered to take off his baseball cap. His exposed face is paler than usual, but he ignores her as she stalks forward and grabs the back of his chair.  
          “I said go –”  
          “I won’t leave!” Joker shouts, finally turning to snarl back at her. “I can still save her!”  
          “Jeff.” Shepard motions to the CIC, half-obscured behind them. Even from here the silent dead section can be seen – by now even more debris floats around the wound.  
          “The Normandy’s lost.” Shepard’s heart breaks even as she says the words – it hurts more than she would have imagined. “Throwing your life away isn’t going to save her.”  
          He looks back at the CIC, shaking his head wildly. Shepard tenses – she’s ready to drag him to the escape pod herself, his brittle-bone disease be damned.  
          But he exhales, wet and shaky. “O-okay. Okay. I… need help up…”  
          “EVA suit first.” Shepard takes off his cap with the flick of her wrist, handing him the helmet. She only barely relaxes when she hears the click of his helmet locking down - at least now his odds have improved somewhat.  
          Leaning heavily on Shepard, Joker pushes forward as fast as he is able. As they cross the mass effect field into open space, he hesitates for just a second. “Commander, the other ship. It’s… it’s nothing I’ve ever seen before –”  
          She takes a step forward, urging him on. “We can talk about it in the pod.”  
          “No, Commander, you don’t understand. It didn’t look right – ”  
          A shadow falls over the CIC. Something’s blocking the planetshine…  
          Shepard looks up.  
          “They’re coming back around!” Joker shouts.  
          Shepard practically drags him the remaining few steps, opening the escape pod and heaving Joker inside. She raises her foot to step inside after him –  
          The helm decompresses explosively as the mass effect fields fail. The shockwave catches her half on one foot. In a whirlwind of force Shepard is flung to the side, away from the pod. The world twists around her, and in the chaos Shepard can see flashes of Joker in the pod, reaching out to grab her, calling her name.  
          But the low gravity intensifies the wild inertia, and Shepard only stops when she slams back against something, so hard she swears she can hear the hardsuit crack. She tries to steady herself – get her bearings, but for a few good moments the world won’t stop spinning. Then she sees: now she’s on the other side of the CIC, practically the furthest point from the pod.  
          Alchera’s planetshine illuminates the CIC yet again. The other ship is gone.  
          From above a red-and-orange laser cuts down through the back end of the Normandy. Without its shield, the single blow bursts the ship apart. Shepard issues the command for Joker’s pod to seal and launch. The HUD display from the Normandy blinks off, the last stage of death for her starship.  
          The explosion catches Shepard again, blowing her back. The shockwave had come from further down the ship – she’s not sent into the dizzying whirl again, but she’s behind enough inertia that she can’t stop –  
           _I’m being flung out into fucking space –_  
          Shepard reaches out for something, anything. If she can just slow down, maybe she can pick her way through the debris back towards the main wreckage site – she can see the blinking signal lights of the Normandy’s escape pods as they float serenely amid the expanding rubble. Shepard uses the sight of them to crush down the rising panic, to grip the calm with everything she has.  
           _Just get to them. That’s all you have to do. You can do this, you have plenty of time._  
          Then she sees the ship.  
          It’s long, almost impossibly huge. Near the back thrusters it is dark gray and jagged, stabilized by half-circle fins. Long spindly sensor antennae shoot off here and there like needles. The front half of the ship – is something else. Matte brown, bulbous and rough, it looks almost earthen, like some growth wrapping around the actual starship and crawling down the sides.  
          For a moment Shepard stops her futile struggle, staring down the hideous starship as it passes over the remains of the Normandy. For a sickening moment it seems the escape pods are its next target – but it ignores them completely, heading off lazily into the darkness of space.  
          It destroyed the Normandy, and it left. Shepard resumes the attempts to slow down her inertia. It didn’t want prisoners or casualties – but why? The sight of the escape pods starts to revive the panic – they’re farther away than ever, now. The combat hardsuit protects her from the immediate conditions of space, but she needs to get to a pod if she’s going to survive until rescue comes.  
          A hissing noise, in her ear. Soft. Barely perceptible.  
          Shepard reaches up, touches the side of her helmet. Her hand slides to the back of her head. To the back of her neck.  
          Even through the hardsuit gauntlet she can feel the steady stream of pressure. Her brain refuses to accept it – not after the destruction of the Normandy, not after the bizarre starship, not after being flung out into space…  
          It’s her air.  
           _In the explosion I hit the wall and I heard a crack –_  
          Her oxygen supply is leaking out between her fingers.  
          Both hands clap to the back of her neck, to the seam where the air is delivered to her helmet. She presses down with all her strength, contorts her body for a better angle. The pressure stream doesn’t even slow.  
          So many times her life where she was sure she was going to die. Mindoir. Elysium. The Prothean vision that slowly overloaded her brain. Practically every step chasing Saren, right down to the Battle of the Citadel.  
          Of course she would go down fighting – she was a soldier.  
          But now…  
          The escape pods are just specks of blinking lights.  
          The pressure hisses past her fingers.  
          Space is wide and dark. To her right, Alchera looms.  
          There’s no fighting here.  
          Nothing left to do but wait. Until her air runs out.  
           _Until she dies._  
          Shepard scrabbles both hands over the back of her neck, and screams, and _screams_ , until it all goes dark.


	2. Error 723

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhh so sorry for the long wait, I've been hideously busy. But I've seen everyone's wonderful comments and freaked out every time! I seriously love you guys, and I sincerely hope it was worth the wait.
> 
> AHEM for the chapter - 
> 
> This was a weird chapter to write because of all the conflicting (and extreme) emotions that had to come with it. It went through a couple rewrites and an outside review after I humbly asked a friend to beta for me. After all that it still felt kind of weird and lonely - but maybe that comes with the shift in story that happens in ME2. 
> 
> But... the foreshadowing was fun as always!

          There was something important she had to do.  
          Through the groggy dark Shepard can’t remember what it was.  
          Her morning alarm hadn’t woken her, so judging by the bleary feeling throughout her body it was likely still very early. Best to go back to sleep and be ready for the morning. She’d need to be ready, for…  
          A strange deep ache radiates out from her face.  
          What had she been doing? It lies somewhere on the edge of her perception. She picks at it, follows the thread. She had been chasing Saren. He was helping the Reapers. She had to stop him before he reached the Conduit.  
           _Wait._  
          She’d stopped Saren. She’d exposed the Reaper Sovereign to the entire galaxy.  
           _Wait._  
          They sent her to chase geth – the race of rogue AI who had helped attack the Citadel.  
          There were no geth. There was a starship, long and wide and covered in earthy growths. The planet Alchera. The Normandy, breaking apart. The blinking lights of escape pods, so far away. _I have to find a way to reach them._  
          Air hissing past her fingers.  
           _I died._  
          Shepard sits up, gasping.  
          The sudden adrenaline blooms in her middle so fast it hurts. Each breath is as deep and rapid as her lungs will allow, but none of the gulps are enough. Her heart batters inside her chest, and the pulse she can hear inside her ears says the same words over and over:  
           _My air my air my air my air –_  
          The spinning room is halted as a voice says her name, quick and firm. Shepard flinches, panting and looking at the ceiling of the dim room. Someone speaks to her, over her an intercom:  
          “Shepard, get up! The facility is under attack, so you’ve got to get moving! Answer me if you can hear this!”  
          A woman’s voice, composed but urgent. There’s an accent to it, a lilting drawl – it means someplace from Earth, but the details escape Shepard past that single venomous thought:  
           _I died._  
          “I’m – ” The words croak out of her throat. She coughs and forces it out. “I’m here. Who are you?”  
          “Good. My name is Miranda Lawson. You need to reach the shuttle bay. We’re being overrun – ” Gunfire sounds from the intercom, over the woman’s voice. “They’re closing in on my position – whatever you do, stay alive –”  
          “Where am I? What’s going -?”  
          The intercom clicks out.  
          Coughing, Shepard presses a hand against the side of her face – the ache has deepened to a throbbing pain. In fact, her whole body feels raw somehow; protesting with a sharp soreness with every movement.  
          It takes several long moments for her brain to process the room she sits in – and to crush down the two words that raise yet another tidal wave of panic –  
           _I died._  
          The monitor next to her bed reads several vitals, including a frenzied heart rate and blood pressure. Numbly looking down, Shepard sees the wires running up to her chest, under the simple blue medical scrubs. She reaches up the shirt and runs her fingers over the ECG electrodes placed in an arc below her left breast.  
          The woman over the intercom had told her to hurry – but between the waves of animal panic and groggy brain, the sense of urgency doesn’t quite sink in. Picking at the edges with her fingernails, Shepard peels off each electrode in quick little sears of pain.  
          The floor is ice cold as Shepard swings her bare feet over the hospital bed and tests her own weight. Her legs ache under the pressure – it feels as though she’s been sitting for days. A few shaky steps forward suggest she won’t be falling on her face, at least. Shepard slowly makes her way around the bed, towards the only door in the large room.  
          Around the room are cabinets full of syringes, med kits, plastic sterile cups and alcohol wipes. Beside the bed are more vital functions monitors. A corner houses a sharps bin.  
           _I’m in a hospital room._ The fact seems to go hand in hand with the other thought –  
           _I died._  
          – but she can’t get too close to that. It radiates primal terror like a hot coal. That woman, Miranda, had said that this place was under attack. Whether this is somehow tied to the Alliance Shepard can’t say, because the last thing she remembers –  
           _–screaming. Screaming and the air leaking past my fingers –_  
          –the last thing she remembers is not this place. But she has a goal, and now all she has to do is reach the shuttle bay, and stay alive.  
          The doors open as she reaches the exit. The dim silence of the medical room is shattered by distant alarm klaxons and flashing emergency lights. The scene sparks memories of the Normandy, shattered and burning, that nauseating feeling of weightlessness, a pale icy planetshine…  
          Shepard claws her way past the mental freefall, back into reality. The hallway before her is white and sterile-looking, save for the overturned carts and scattered papers. She follows it, padding along on bare feet. No signs direct her way – but for now there is only one path open to her.  
          She finds her way to a long carpeted room, filled with office cubicles. More papers cover the ground, scattered in messy arcs. There are people as well – corpses riddled with bullet holes. They lie collapsed on the ground, or slumped over desks. Dead.  
          Shepard scans the room as she passes through. Each corpse wears the same crisp black and white uniform. It doesn’t seems very much like a hospital here, but to be honest Shepard hasn’t been in a hospital as anything other than a patient.  
          Some of the cubicle monitors are still active, displaying various images. The curiosity cuts through the groggy horror – she passes one with MRI images of a body, x-rays of a badly damaged skeleton. Another shows a skull – most of the right half is missing. Tissue comparisons, diagrams of limbs. All human.  
           _Subject is received but badly damaged,_ one monitor reads. _In addition to expected injuries, much is compromised from sub-zero temps. However, parameters of project confirm subject is salvageable. We will proceed as planned._  
          Shepard passes by a desk with a shattered coffeepot; the liquid dripping down onto the floor is still steaming. Next to it sits an active datapad. Shepard picks it up, scrolling down the touchscreen with a finger:  
           _MESSAGE RECEIVED >> Miranda says our orders are to rate the most damaged skeletal areas. We’re going with prosthetic reconstruction. _  
           _MESSAGE SENT << Christ, the cost is already astronomical. I heard we’re at 5 billion credits so far. Where does the boss get all this money? _  
           _MESSAGE RECEIVED >> Trust me, Miranda was crystal clear. But she didn’t seem very happy. She’s project director, she should be overjoyed at what we have so far._  
           _MESSAGE SENT << Maybe she’s afraid the stiff is going to be the new favorite. With all this money we’re pouring in, I would be too._  
          Shepard puts down the datapad, swallowing hard past a dry throat. _This isn’t a hospital._ She can’t say for sure what it is, but some dark theories lurk below the surface. Her mind pushes them away, refuses to follow the trail. It’s too far down, too close to that panic-inducing fact sitting at the bottom of her thought process.  
          Her vision sweeps the room yet again. There’s still no signs of hostiles, although the scattered bodies and messy chaos of the room confirms there was a battle here, however one-sided. Various door panels display the red light that signals they are locked – leaving only a few accessible. The thought occurs to her: her military grade omni-tool should be more than enough to hack a hospital door.  
          But the quick taps against her skin do nothing. Shepard stares at her own pale bare arm. Omni-tools – especially military models that go through routine checks – don’t simply stop working. One going dead after it was implanted means – nothing good – but regardless of the reason the red-light doors are staying locked. Biting her lip, Shepard chooses the closest available door out of simplicity’s sake and walks through.  
          Another hallway turns at a sharp right angle. Past the bend are more doors, wide open. She carefully peers inside. A huge glass desk is framed by heavy cabinets, and several monitors display more medical scans.  
          Another datapad sits on the desk, and something blinks across the screen. Glancing behind her, Shepard lopes inside and looks it over. Instead of script messages or emails, it contains a recording. According to the datapad prompts, it was in progress of being logged before it was paused.  
          Shepard gently taps the touchscreen. The message begins.  
          “Reconstruction is complete,” Miranda’s voice says, in that distinctive Earth accent Shepard can’t place. “We’ve reached full neural activity, but I won’t rest easy until we’ve tested all mental functions. My orders are clear – she needs to be completely restored. Same mind, same morals, same personality. If Shepard isn’t the woman she was before, then the project is a failure. I won’t let that happen – ” Gunfire sounds from the recording, then shouting. The message clicks out.  
          The room spins.  
          Shepard puts a hand on the expensive glass desk to steady herself. The memories are clear – the Normandy, the unknown ship, Miranda’s voice, the cold floor on her bare feet. But it feels fake, as if she’s playing a part in some action vid.  
          That one point in time – _Tali does a little dance, points at the cargo bay doors. Then the Normandy shudders and knocks them off their feet_ – after that point, none of this is real.  
          It can’t be.  
          Outside in the hall comes the unmistakable sound of a door opening. Shepard drops to a crouch on reflex and creeps up to the doorway. Pressing her body against the wall, she is suddenly, painfully aware that at the moment she is barehanded and wearing only hospital scrubs.  
          The footsteps pounding down the hall are heavy and sharp – not quite like hardsuit boots. Shepard freezes as they get closer and pass the doorway where she hides. They pass her room completely to go further down the hall. As they pass into her view, she can finally see –  
          It’s a handful of tall humanoids; covered in smooth gray plating and black accents. For a split second Shepard is sure she’s finally snapped – they look like walking hardsuits. The helmet-shaped heads contain red circles across the faceplate, and each of them carries a standard assault rifle. They are spattered with blood – red blood.  
          They move in a loose group, giving each other a specific berth. Some near the edges start and stop erratically, staying within the boundaries of the group. After a pause, they collectively decide on a direction, heading down the hall and out of sight.  
          Shepard stands and watches them leave with a laser intensity. Synthetics. Definitely not geth – geth were created by the quarians, and had a curved, sinewy look, almost like their creators’ own environmental suits.  
          In fact, just from appearance alone Shepard is willing to bet that these are a human creation. More importantly, they’re like nothing Shepard has ever encountered. That disconnected feeling crashes back – it’s like she’s no longer even here. She’s just watching, and it will be over any minute – she’ll be back in a galaxy that makes sense…  
           _Get to the shuttle bay._  
          Shepard paces her way down the hall, cautiously following the path of the machines. She reaches an unlocked door – another one that they ignored – and so she moves through, closing it hard behind her.  
          She’s on a second-floor walkway of a wide lobby. Below, the ground floor is covered in plush chairs and glass sculptures. The sound of gunfire calls her attention – From a balcony, four more bipedal machines fire down on someone hiding behind the metal-sheet railing that shields the walkway.  
          With no hardsuit, she has no kinetic barrier. At the moment a single bullet is enough to take her down, if not kill her outright. But the N7 training is ingrained like instinct, and a battle is nothing if not her element.  
          Keeping low, Shepard waits for pauses in the gunfire as she makes her way down the walkway. Luckily, the machines are focused entirely on their target. From her angle, Shepard catches glimpses of him – a tall, broad-bodied man with dark brown skin, firing back on them with a pistol. He wears a black-and-white hardsuit, similar to the uniforms of the earlier corpses.  
          His brown eyes widen when he sees her. “Holy damn! You’re up?”  
          Words spoken to her, by an actual human being – it snaps Shepard fully back into reality. “Are you with Miranda?” Her voice is still painfully hoarse, but the tone sounds steady enough.  
          He nods as shots crack against the walkway’s metal sides. “Yeah. I’m Jacob Taylor. Hope you’re feeling okay, ma’am. There’s still more mechs out there.”  
          “What are they?”  
          “The mechs?” His brow furrows. “Oh. Right. Sorry. These are security mechs, LOKI models. Their VI has been hacked. It means we’ve been betrayed.”  
          Security mechs? It’s nothing that Shepard has ever heard of, but at least they’re only virtual intelligence. That much she can understand. “Jacob, I don’t remember…” she swallows, hard. “I’m sorry, but I don’t remember how I got here.”  
          “You… the whole galaxy thinks you’re dead. And we…” Jacob studies her for a quick, unreadable second, then reaches forward and places the pistol in her hands. “The stories always said you were a crack shot. Help me take these guys out, and I’ll answer all your questions.”  
          The handle of it feels familiar in her hand – comforting. “What about you?”  
          His mouth quirks up into a half-smile. “Me? I’m good.” He peeks above the metal partition and flicks his wrist.  
          Shepard follows his line of sight. The mechs on the other walkway are surrounded in a fiery white-blue light, and they gently rise in the air a good few feet above the ground.  
           _He’s a biotic._ Another comfortably familiar subject. Shepard takes her spot next to him and fires down each of them in a neat line. Caught in the power of the mini-mass effect fields that Jacob controls, the mechs are reduced to immobile targets at a firing range.  
          “Thanks,” Jacob says as he dumps the deactivated bodies. “It’s too hard to keep up a field and fire a gun at the same time. You hold on to that pistol; together we can actually make it out of this place.”  
          “Right. Easy enough.” She lowers the gun, but she stays rooted firmly where she stands. After a moment she raises her eyebrows.  
          “I said I would explain…” He sighs heavily and furrows his brow again. “Okay. I said the entire galaxy thinks you’re dead, right? Let’s say… they don’t just think you’re dead. Maybe… After the Normandy crashed… You really were dead.”  
          Shepard barks a laugh. Hearing it come from someone else’s mouth gives it distance – much needed distance. “But I’m still here, aren’t I? It couldn’t have been that bad.”  
          He grimaces. “I was here when they brought you in. Trust me, you looked pretty dead.”  
          The computer monitors back near the hospital room… Subject badly damaged. Pictures of a partial skeleton, a skull missing most of the right side. Suddenly she can’t run from it any longer.  
           _That was me._  
          She takes a step backwards. The horror claws its way back up, giving her voice a sharp panicky tone. “What’re you saying? I’m some kind of cybernetic copy? Or a clone?”  
          “No, no,” Jacob says, raising both hands, palms up and entreating. “You’re the real Shepard. No clone, no copy, just you. You just… have some internal prosthetics, now.”  
          Her mind flails, reaches for that one last shred of denial. “What you’re saying literally can’t be true. You can’t bring the dead back to life. That sort of technology doesn’t exist. It’s… a fairy tale.”  
          “Well, I’m looking at proof it does exist,” Jacob says gently, lowering his hands. “I’m not going to lie; I don’t understand any of it. I’m just head of security here. As long as we’re being honest, I don’t think Miranda understands it completely, either – ”  
          “Miranda,” Shepard echoes. “She said to meet her in the shuttle bay.”  
          “Good plan. We can talk along the way. Stay behind me.” Jacob steps forward to take point.  
          Shepard allows him to move ahead of her; he’s the one with the hardsuit and kinetic barrier. “Thanks.”  
          She follows him past the next set of doors, through the facility. He moves with a practiced air, and the blue fire of biotics swirls around his hands. The stances, the way he sweeps for cover – Shepard would swear he’s military trained.  
          “So. Now that we can supposedly bring back the dead,” Shepard says dryly as they sweep through another empty cubicle room. “Who else is there besides me?”  
          “Just you,” Jacob says.  
          “Pardon?”  
          “You’re the only one. The project was created to bring you back.”  
          “Who in the galaxy has that kind of technology ready and chooses me?” In a way, this is harder to believe than the rest of it. She grasps at some sort of answer. “The Alliance?”  
          “Not the Alliance.” Jacob says. Shepard can’t be sure, but his voice sounds a little tense. “You might be proof it exists, but technically… no one has the technology ready. From what I understand, you’re like… a special case. Even then, the resources we had to use were surreal. For anyone else in the galaxy, it would have been impossible.”  
          Shepard frowns, sweeping the next room with her pistol. “Who are ‘we’?”  
          Jacob’s broad shoulders square forward. “Let’s just get to the shuttle bay, okay? Getting killed here doesn’t do anyone any good.”  
          “Fine.” Shepard nods, keeps her voice light, But she tightens her grip on the pistol.  
          He leads her through a utility door, down a narrow maintenance hallway jumbled with pipes and air ducts. The cramped quarters might normally be a death wish – but she is safe with a biotic at point, especially one who is skilled enough to float enemies.  
          “This leads to the main server room,” Jacob says softly over his shoulder. “From there we exit out to the central hallway, and the bay is right there.”  
          “Understood,” Shepard covers their rear with the pistol, stepping over a large floor-embedded pipe with her bare feet. The sooner she gets out of these damned scrubs, the better. Jacob reaches the other end and opens the latch, pulling the door open.  
          “Crap! Incoming!” Jacob steps aside and motions with his hand. Further down, amid the rows of computer servers, mechs slowly float helplessly to the ceiling. Shepard opens fire, but more appear around another row. She is forced to focus her fire on the free mechs.  
          “Hey, Jacob? Almost out of shots, here.”  
          “Right.” He releases his biotic power, following her to take cover behind a tall row of servers. He unloads a clip stored in his hardsuit and tosses it to her. As the mechs follow them around the corner, Jacob traps them again in a seamless transition, allowing Shepard an easy view to snipe them down one by one.  
          “Damn.” He drops the sparking mechs and looks at the trail they’ve left. “No joke. You’re a surgeon with that thing.”  
          “Thanks for the biotic support,” Shepard says, and despite their circumstances she means it. She’s still in the dark, unarmored, and at his mercy. But his skill with biotics is undeniable.  
          “Jacob?” A man’s voice calls out. “Is – is that you? You’re alive?”  
          Jacob wheels around the rows of servers, searching. “Wilson? What the hell?”  
          A pale bald man cowers in the corner, wearing that black-and-white facility uniform. He watches Jacob approach with wide eyes. “I thought they’d killed everyone. I was trying to shut down the mech system when they just came in – ” he sees Shepard, and the blood practically drains from his face. “It’s her?!”  
          “Miranda got her up,” Jacob says, studying Wilson for a few long moments.  
          Wilson stares up at him indignantly. “There’s protocols to follow. We can’t just go waking her up without making sure –”  
          “Wilson. You shouldn’t have access to the server room,” Jacob says. “You’re in medical sciences, not IT or security. How did you get here?”  
          “I said I was trying to shut down the mechs. What’s with the third degree?” Wilson spits.  
          “I want to know. It’s a war zone out there. I’m not risking my back for you if I can’t trust you.”  
          “You’re the biotic here. I’m gonna have to rely on you to get out alive. I’m not going unless I know that I can trust you, too.”  
          “Then you both have a lot of answering to do,” Shepard raises her voice, and Wilson visibly flinches at the sound. “I’m having to fight my way out of here and I don’t even know where ‘here’ is. Can we please get a fucking move-on?”  
          After a long moment Jacob finally offers a hand to help Wilson to his feet, who makes a show of dusting himself off and muttering. Shepard takes a few steps wait at the other side of the room, but she goes no further – as of now, she must also rely on Jacob to survive. She looks back at them impatiently.  
          Jacob strides forward, but he stops halfway instead of taking point. He swallows. “Commander Shepard. I’m going to tell you – who ‘we’ are.”  
          “What?” Wilson looks up sharply. “Don’t you dare, Jacob. Waking her up early is one thing, but this is gonna piss off the boss.”  
          “I don’t care.” Jacob’s face is solemn. “If she has to fight, she should at least know that much.”  
          There’s something in their tone, their body language, which sends an electric shock of alarm through her. She tightens her grip on the pistol. “Go on.”  
          “The project, the lab that revived you,” Jacob says. “It’s controlled by Cerberus.”  
          The gun is up and pointed at him before she even realizes it. He doesn’t appear overly worried, but then again – he’s the biotic wearing a hardsuit with a full kinetic barrier. He can afford to be a little unconcerned.  
          “The pro-human terrorist group,” she says evenly, staring at him down the gun. “Yeah. I remember.”  
          “There’s more to it than that,” Jacob says, tensing his body. A note of defensiveness creeps into his voice. “Like us here, right now. The Alliance wrote you off as dead. It was Cerberus who brought you back.”  
          “With that amazing technology no one technically has.”  
          “Like I said. We had a chance, and you were the best shot.”  
          “See, now we’re screwed,” Wilson says sullenly. “She’s gonna shoot both of us and then get herself killed with no armor on.”  
          “She deserved to know,” Jacob says. His gaze never leaves her face.  
          Shepard takes a few steadying breaths. _Damn, my face fucking hurts. Of course, losing half your skull and having it replaced with artificial bone would probably do that._  
          Wilson is right; she wants very badly to put a bullet in both of them – but even if she could down them both, even if she managed to fit some of Jacob’s armor on her body, she still only had a pistol. Her chances would be much better with an actual biotic. _Even if he’s a Cerberus biotic?_ “You said just past here was the shuttle bay. We’re going to get there, get on the shuttle, and get the hell out of here. Right?”  
          “That’s the plan,” Jacob says calmly. “And then everything will be explained to you. Everything.”  
          Taking one last shuddery breath, Shepard lowers the pistol. “I’m not working with fucking terrorists.”  
          “We need to watch each other’s backs if we’re getting out of here,” Jacob says, walking past her and taking point.  
           _He didn’t address what I said,_ Shepard thinks acidly. But she follows him.  
          Down another short hallway, taking cover behind large double doors – beyond is a huge room with windows that take up the entire opposite wall, revealing the starry darkness of space. A series of staircases connect the different stories of the station to the shuttle’s loading platform. At every section are the security mechs, patrolling in their separate squads.  
          “The connection airlock to each shuttle is reinforced, as a security measure.” Jacob motions to the platform - from their level they have one more flight of stairs to climb.  
          “So if we reach the airlock we’ll be safe,” Shepard concludes. _Safe from the mechs, at least._  
          “Right.” Jacob watches the patrols from his position on point. “On my signal…”  
          He waves once. “Go!”  
          The three of them go tearing across the walkway. After a moment the first squad of mechs detects the movement. Others remain oblivious – obviously the VIs are not connected between groups.  
          Jacob slows his pace to throw a messy biotic wave – knocking entire groups off the higher stories and sending them tumbling below. He lifts another group to float in the air – not for Shepard to fire down, but only to give them more time to run. The gunshots hit the floor around them, but she only keeps as low as she can and runs.  
          Even with the adrenaline pushing her on, Shepard’s body protests as she starts climbing the stairs. Each step feels like it is a thousand miles away – but the thought of dying to a stray bullet on some Cerberus station is infuriating. She staggers past the top step and reaches the connection airlock. Turning inside, she presses her body against the inner wall and gasps for breath past a burning throat.  
          Wilson comes inside, staggering so hard he almost trips. Jacob is in last, closing the heavy metal doors behind him. The locks engage with a heavy snap, and the sounds of gunfire are shut out.  
          Shepard leans against the wall, watching the two men recover and keeping her grip tight on the pistol. They’ve reached the shuttle airlock. Jacob may have promised an explanation, but Shepard’s not so sure she even wants to hear it. _Not from Cerberus._  
          “God! We made it!” Wilson says breathlessly as he goes to the other side of the airlock, activing the touchpad to open the door to the shuttle. “Now we can get off this damn deathtrap –”  
          The door opens. A single gunshot. Wilson falls backward, blood streaming from his throat.  
          Shepard has the gun pointed at the doorway in an instant – but it’s not a mech standing in the shuttle. It’s a human – a woman, calmly lowering her gun and looking at them with a cool amusement.  
          “Miranda! What are you doing?!” Jacob’s voice is angry, but he doesn’t raise his biotics against her.  
          “Miranda?” Shepard mutters under her breath. The woman standing before her looks more like a supermodel than a Cerberus operative; shoulder-length black hair swept perfectly around her face, smooth pale skin, high cheekbones and deep blue eyes. Like Jacob, she wears a black-and-white hardsuit, and her other hand holds a glowing datapad.  
          “I’m doing my job, Jacob,” Miranda answers. The gun Shepard points at her barely gets a glance. “Wilson was our traitor.”  
           “Wilson was one of the head scientists. He’s been on this project since the start,” Jacob says. “You’ve gotta be wrong.”  
          The corners of her mouth quirk up into a smile. “I’m never wrong. You should know that by now.”  
          Finally turning to Shepard, Miranda studies her for a brief second, still ignoring the raised gun. Then she says, “Get on the shuttle, Shepard. There’s someone who wants to speak with you.”  
          “Right. Someone from Cerberus,” Shepard says past gritted teeth.  
          Miranda’s gaze slides back to Jacob; if anything her smile deepens. “Oh, Jacob,” she sighs. “I knew your conscience would get the better of you.”  
          “Lying to her isn’t going to inspire her to the cause.”  
          “There is no inspiring me to the cause,” Shepard says, slowly lowering the pistol. Miranda and Jacob had saved her life, but it was only because they had plans for her. That still meant they had an interest in her safety, at least for now. “What if I say no?”  
          Miranda looks back at her, cool and calculating. “I lift you with my biotics and throw you inside.” She steps aside to allow Shepard access to the shuttle.  
           _She’s a biotic too._ Two biotics – the pistol in Shepard’s hands might as well be nothing. Caught between her utter loathing at following those orders and the obvious path to self-preservation – after one furious moment Shepard strides past Miranda, into the shuttle. She is acutely aware of Jacob falling in step behind her.  
          Their transport shuttle contains two rows of double seats, facing one another. A single circular port is the only window. Shepard takes her place in one seat, and both Cerberus operatives take the opposite side. She stares them down, shifting her gaze from one to the other. _I guess no one’s driving this thing,_ Shepard thinks as the doors lock shut. The shuttle lurches to the side and casts off, out into space. Either there’s a cockpit that doesn’t connect to this sitting area – or the whole thing is following a preprogrammed route.  
          Either way, it’s out of her control in every way possible. Shepard glances to the window. Past her pale reflection is the vast darkness of space.  
           _I’m stuck in a four-seater shuttle with two Cerberus agents. Two biotics. Wherever they want me to go, I have to go. I literally have no choice._ Suddenly their sitting space seems too small, too crowded.  
          “Commander Shepard,” Miranda begins, scrolling down the datapad. “I am Miranda Lawson, born in Sydney, Australia, on Earth. I am the director of the project assigned to restoring you. You’ve already met my lieutenant, Jacob Taylor. He was born in New York, United States, also on Earth. It appears I have him to thank for helping to guide you to the shuttle bay.”  
           _And you two work for Cerberus,_ Shepard thinks, keeping her breathing steady. She says nothing.  
          “Of course, we know you. Claire Shepard. You were born Solar Standard Time of April 11, 2154 on…” Miranda continues, scrolling down the datapad. Her eyebrows raise, just slightly. “Mindoir, a frontier colony near Terminus space.”  
          Shepard stares back at her. _I’m the only one here not born on Earth. Is that what this is leading to?_ Of course they would circle this topic. Cerberus believed that humans were the superior species; why wouldn’t they enforce the old idea that Earth-born were more pure than those born off-world?  
          After a lengthy pause Miranda continues: “Your family was killed in the batarian slaver raid on Mindoir when you were sixteen. You enlisted in the Alliance military at eighteen, serving with distinction and honor until you were listed as KIA two years ago.”  
          “What?” Shepard jolts forward. _Keep calm. You misheard._ “What did you say? Two years?!”  
          “Oh? You didn’t tell her?” Miranda looks to Jacob.  
          “I, uh… Yeah, I guess I didn’t mention that.”  
          “The SSV Normandy was destroyed in 2183.” Miranda turns back to Shepard.  
          “And it’s…” Shepard flounders, searching her memory.  
          “It’s 2185,” Miranda says. “As I said. Two years.”  
          Shepard stares back at them – but she doesn’t really see them. They have no reason to lie to her – hell, they can’t keep it up an illusion that big. _Can they?_ “Two years,” she echoes again, trying to process it. “The Normandy was destroyed two years ago. I’ve been – ” she halts, swallowing. “I’ve been gone for two years.”  
          For a split second, Miranda’s cool expression softens to something else. “Yes, Commander. The project has been in development for two years.”  
          Shepard drops her gaze to the shuttle floor, past her own bare feet. _Tali and Liara and Ashley. Joker. Garrus and Wrex._ Where were they now? How had they reacted when they heard that she was dead? Does it matter? _It’s been two years. They’ve all long moved on. I commanded our big mission, but I’m still just a soldier. By now it’s become the past._  
          The isolation smothers over her. Distance is one thing, but a separation of time? Miranda said she was under the KIA designation in Alliance records. That means –  
          No one’s looking for her. No one’s waiting for her. Except for two agents sitting across from her in this shuttle.  
          Members of Cerberus.  
          But _why?_ She personally crossed paths with Cerberus only by accident while she chased after Saren. The information she recovered exposed countless operations: labs hidden behind colony fronts, faked industrial accidents, experiments on humans – _an Alliance Admiral, used as a test subject._  
          Her blood chills at the memory. It feels like time itself has stopped.  
           _That’s right. They killed an Alliance Admiral._ No ransom, no trail – he had been listed as missing for months before Shepard and her crew had found his body. If they hadn’t… _he would have stayed missing for good. We never would have known._  
          They wouldn’t bring her back just to kill her again – but on the other hand, if even part of this is true, then they have spent a great deal for her to be here. They have a plan that she is a part of.  
          If she refuses, they have no further reason to keep her alive.  
           _I’m… a Cerberus hostage._  
          Shepard looks back up to the two people sitting across from her. Now that she’s not fighting for her life, the stark reality of her situation finally solidifies. It’s the opposite of that dreamlike, disconnected feeling back on the station. The bones of a plan fit together: _Comply with them for now. Observe, gather information. They have plans for you, but they had a reason to bring you back. You’re vital in some way. They’ll let their guard down eventually._  
           _I need to get back to the Alliance._  
          The shuttle slows to a gentle stop. Airlock doors snap in place. Shepard turns, looking to the window; outside is the blank gray walls of a docking station.  
          Miranda stands, looking down at her. “We’ve arrived.”

 

          The weight of the hardsuit armor is familiar and comfortable. Shepard doesn’t bother adjusting the fittings at the joints. It’s clear that this is no generic, mass-produced model – this is made for her exactly, right down to the clothes beneath it. Strangely enough, it even has the N7 designation over the right breast, and the red-and-white Alliance commander’s strip down the right arm. _Well, they supposedly rebuilt entire sections of my body. Guess they took my measurements too._  
          Even as she thinks it, the incredulous feeling dulls and fades quickly – a mental wound already forming a scar. _They said they brought me back from the dead. But it’s like I told Jacob; that technology doesn’t exist. It would literally change society as we know it._  
          Like the ability to jump entire sections of the galaxy in hours, or mere minutes? People use mass relays every day –  
          Shepard pushes the thought away before her stomach gets too queasy. There’s more going on here, and the only thing she can do is gather more information – that and stay alive. She strides back out of the fancy washroom, leaving the hospital scrubs in a heap on the floor.  
          The doors slide open automatically, leading back into a long, windowless corridor that cuts through the space station. Shepard meets no one else on the way. The station itself looked large enough from the docking station – she suspects that they’ve cordoned off this corner for their arrival, keeping her away from anyone besides the two biotics accompanying her.  
          Right before she enters the next room, she hears the voices of Jacob and Miranda, talking low:  
          “We didn’t get any sort of evaluation after she regained consciousness. I still need to appraise her mental condition.”  
          “Come on, Miranda. I watched her fight. She’s more than proven herself.”  
          “I’d like more concrete results than just battle reaction times, you know. I’ll have plenty of that data soon enough.”  
          “You want me to talk about how upset she was when I admitted we were Cerberus? I thought she was going to shoot me.”  
          “I suppose I’ll just have to document the mental results as we go. It’s not ideal, but it should be enough for him.”  
           _She’ll have plenty of battle data?_ So we’re going to fight soon. Strangely, the knowledge heartens her. A battle is a mass of shifting variables; and right now, variables are her best chance at reaching some kind of help, or finding a way out of here.  
          She steps into the room, clearing her throat loudly. Let them realize she was listening.  
          Jacob and Miranda turn to face her. They’ve both changed into new hardsuits, heavier than the civilian models they wore before. Over the left breast is a pale orange hexagon-in-brackets symbol, small but obvious. Seeing the Cerberus emblem worn openly is a strange kind of unsettling – members usually go to extremes to keep any sort of anonymity.  
          “I’m sorry it took so long to get you back in a hardsuit, Shepard,” Jacob says. “I’m sure you didn’t like having to run around a combat zone in scrubs. I know I wouldn’t.”  
          She shrugs. “Showered, changed into battle armor, just like you two wanted… Do I look nice and presentable for your boss?”  
          “Of course.” Miranda strides forward, leading Shepard across the room. “Follow me, Commander. My superior will see you.”  
          Through a huge set of double-doors, their walkway is wide and lit almost painfully bright. If it bothers Miranda, she doesn’t show it. She opens the huge, circular door with a hand-scan and motions inside.  
          Nonplussed, Shepard steps through, but Miranda doesn’t follow. The room is dark, and it reaches pitch black as the door closes behind her. For a few seconds she simply stands and waits.  
           _Why are we meeting in a dark room? This seems a little dramatic, even for Cerberus._  
          Around her, a ring of blue lights switch on. Somewhere above her another soft light clicks on, shining down a column of blue that encircles her body.  
          A few feet away, another column of blue beams down. The center breaks into tiny points of light that focus down –  
          It’s forming a hologram. Shepard herself stands in a projection platform – somewhere, someone is receiving a hologram of her. But the size of them is staggering. Holo-platforms are expensive enough as it is; not even the Citadel Council uses one this big.  
           _Hell,_ Shepard thinks as she watches the image form. _No one uses them this size. What’s the point?_  
          The other platform focuses, showing a life-sized image of a man lounging in an artsy round chair. He looks mid-fifties at the absolute most; tall, square-jawed, with dark gray-streaked hair that is combed neatly back. The collar of his expensive suit is unbutton, ruffled – it gives him a relaxed, almost roguish look.  
          Then she notices his eyes – so steely ice-blue that the hologram projection seems to make them glow.  
          For several long seconds the two of them stare at each other. He motions, and the hologram loads the cigarette he raises to his lips. No one speaks.  
          Finally Shepard crosses her arms. “Okay. You’re Miranda’s boss, right? If she was a project director, I’m guessing you’re close to the top.”  
          He smiles at her. “Top? Sure. You could say I’m at the top.”  
          “Are we just going to stare at each other all day, or are you going to tell me your name?”  
          “I don’t need to give you my name, Shepard. You already know it.”  
          She frowns. At first glance he looks like some stereotypical aged rich playboy – but those eyes. _Do I recognize those eyes?_  
          “Well, Shepard? Still nothing?” He shakes his head a little, still smiling. “Surprising. The Alliance gave me my name, after all.”  
          “Wait – ”  
          “I’m the Illusive Man.”  
          She stares at him, then scoffs a laugh. “You’re telling me… I’m talking to the leader of Cerberus? I thought you were supposed to be the best-kept secret in the galaxy.”  
          He shrugs. “You’re one of the biggest investments I’ve undertaken, Shepard. One of the most important. I’ve had a direct role in this project since the start, and I wanted to the see the results myself. I’m sure you understand.”  
          Maybe it’s the ostentatious method of communication, or maybe she’s reached the limit to how much she can deny – but she believes him. _Okay then. I’m speaking to the leader of Cerberus. He wanted me to be here._  
          It hits her: _He’s the one deciding my fate, not Miranda._  
           _The leader of Cerberus is the one holding my leash._  
          He still watches her, flicking the cigarette on the side of his chair. Waiting.  
          “You didn’t want to meet me face to face?” Her voice sounds amused, bored even. Good.  
          “A necessary precaution. For people who know – what you and I know.”  
          She fights the laugh again. “And what is it that we both know, exactly?”  
          “That everyone’s place in the galaxy is far more fragile than they think.” The smile slowly leaves his face. “That two years ago, one woman stood between us and the end. She called that end a Reaper.”  
          Shepard flinches, dropping her arms to her sides and clenching her fists. _The Reapers._ Her current bizarre predicament with Cerberus has been at the forefront of her mind, but this – _They’re still waiting in dark space. Miranda said it’s been two years._  
          In two years, nothing had happened? How long did the Reapers need to reach the galaxy? They still have plenty of time to prepare –  
          But that same feeling whispers down, so strong and familiar it chills her. _Sovereign had just been defeated. The galaxy had been saved. But Shepard had been lying in the Citadel Chambers, amid the rubble_ – and she realizes:  
           _They’re still coming. She doesn’t know how, or when. But even this moment is borrowed time._  
          The Illusive Man chuckles, sounding almost fatherly. “Good. I’m glad your memory is intact. How’re you feeling, by the way?”  
          The reminder of the Reapers – and all the time she’s lost – erodes the last of her patience. “Cut the act. You’re not my friend.”  
          The edges of the smile creep back on his face. “Cerberus isn’t as evil as you’ve been led to believe, Commander.”  
          “Like Chasca?” She starts to take a step forward but stops herself. “All the things I learned there – what I saw myself? Just a big misunderstanding?”  
          “We must continue our progress as a species, regardless of the cost. It is the only way we can survive.” The Illusive Man sits motionless, lounging back in his chair. “Sometimes that cost is high. So be it. You went to Chasca looking for a certain alien artifact we had. You are aware it was actually a fragment of Sovereign, are you not?”  
          Shepard grits her jaw and refuses to answer. Of course it makes sense now. But by the time she’d learned the truth about Sovereign, the artifact had been the last thing on her mind.  
          “That fragment was what brought my attention to the Reapers. I followed the clues back, through your reports passed to me by my contacts in the Alliance. The Council didn’t believe you, even after they saw Sovereign themselves. But I did. And I’ve been watching, just as you would have watched. So, you see...” He nods to her. “We’re on the same side.”  
          “I said cut the act,” Shepard snaps. “What about the Reapers?”  
          He stands, snuffing out the cigarette. “No one wants to see it, but we’re under attack, Shepard. While you were gone, entire colonies have gone missing. Human colonies. They disappear without a trace, in the space of hours.”  
          Some of the sick tension eases. _They’re not here yet._ Shepard shakes her head. “Sounds like you need the Alliance.”  
          “Three of their Fleets suffered major losses in the Battle of the Citadel. Their recovery was slow going. We gained the galaxy’s trust, but now that humanity has a position on the Council… the Alliance has been very busy serving non-humans.” His tone says exactly what he feels about that. “The Council refuses to intervene outright. If we wait for either of them to finally acknowledge the problem, no one will be left.”  
          Shepard pauses. A hidden attack, a slow-moving bureaucracy, a single herald that no one believes. It’s a familiar, relatable story – which is precisely what makes her hackles rise. “Sovereign said that the Reapers were coming to harvest all life in the galaxy. I believe its exact words mentioned ‘darkening the skies of every world.’ If they were here, they wouldn’t be targeting a few colonies.”  
          “It’s not a few,” the Illusive Man says, folding his hand behind his back. “It’s hundreds of colonies. Soon to be thousands. But they’re all at random points, at the edges of Citadel space. There’s no strategy behind it; and no signs of battle, no violence. But no survivors.”  
          “And it’s only humans. Why?”  
          “That I can’t answer. You’re the one who prevented the invasion, against all odds. Maybe they’re... punishing humanity.”  
          Shepard narrows her eyes, just barely. Of course. _Insinuate that it’s my fault; I had to save the galaxy but now I have to deal with the consequences. The whole ‘in this together’ tack along with some implied guilt._  
          “So, you need me for this? Just me?” She tries to keep it diplomatic, but the attempted manipulation leaves her angry. “You could have raised an army for the money you spent on the project. One a little more loyal to you.”  
          His eyebrows raise. “You’re unique, Shepard. You’re infiltrator-trained Special Forces, an exemplary soldier. But you’re a symbol – the best humanity has to offer. It’s why I had the N7 designation and the commander’s stripe put on your armor. I don’t know if the Reapers can feel fear, but because of you, one of theirs is dead. They should at least respect that.”  
           _And now for the flattery._ Shepard watches him warily. The manipulation tactics can be ignored easily enough; he wants her to do something, and he wants her to go willingly. And of course he would mention the Reapers in order to corral her – she and her team had been the only ones to recognize their threat and halt the invasion. _So the rest is just more pretense._ Sovereign had attacked the colony of Eden Prime and left it broken and burning. People who simply disappeared without a trace were too subtle for a Reaper, too gentle…  
           _Unless this is the backup strategy._  
          Her whole body freezes.  
          The Illusive Man smiles.  
          Very carefully Shepard picks her next words. “You’ve told me a lot of theories. And I’ve listened. But now I want to see some proof.”  
          He practically beams, sitting back down in his chair. “I would be disappointed if you accepted right away. That pragmatism is what I like about you, Shepard. As a matter of fact, I’ve used some of my resources to periodically check on colonies I feel might be targets. Only a few hours ago I received word that the colony of Freedom’s Progress has been hit. You’ll go there with Jacob and Miranda to investigate.”  
           _There it is._ “I don’t want your people. I can go on my own.”  
          “You’ll take them,” the Illusive Man says conversationally. “They saved your life. Jacob is ex-Alliance, you know – he may not agree with everything Cerberus represents, but he’s always been up front about it. Miranda answers directly to me; there’s no way she’ll undermine this assignment. You’ll do just fine.”  
          “So we’ve stopped pretending that I have a choice?”  
          “Shepard.” The Illusive Man steeples his fingers. “You absolutely have a choice. If you go to Freedom’s Progress and don’t feel convinced, then…” he opens his hands, palms up. “We’ll just part ways.”  
          Shepard’s stomach drops like a cold stone. The warm, benevolent tone – he seems gently offended that she would think otherwise. But Cerberus had funded a massive project that focused entirely on her. And now she’s met the Illusive Man himself – whom the Alliance has been desperately hunting since Cerberus first appeared. As long as she lives, she’s a loose end – at the heart of a group that lives and dies by secrecy. They both know it.  
          It’s not the obvious lie that bothers her. It’s the genuine, fatherly way he says it.  
           _Don’t call him on it._ Every one of her instincts scream it. He has to think he can control you.  
          “Fine.” Shepard says, letting herself sound angry. He’s expecting her to be a little bit obstinate, of course – and anger is easier to deal with than fear. “I’ll go see your proof.”  
          “I look forward to your report. Good luck, Commander.” Both holo-platforms blink out. Shepard stands in the darkness for a few long seconds, fighting the shaking in her hands. Then behind her, the door opens.  
          Miranda is a silhouette in the doorway, watching Shepard with that unflappable calm. “We’ll board a standard passenger shuttle to take us to Freedom’s Progress,” she says, stepping in line to walk next to Shepard. “The trip will be a couple hours. The Illusive Man insisted you be allowed guns for the mission. I suppose I’ll see if you actually live up to his expectations.”  
          Shepard throws her a glance. “Is there a problem here, Miranda?”  
          Miranda purses her lips. “I believe in what Cerberus stands for. I respect your abilities, Commander Shepard. I do not trust your motivations. All things considered, you’re looking like a liability, rather than an asset.”  
          Shepard doesn’t answer; there’s no point in denying it. In silence they pass through the main waiting area. Jacob is there, sitting amid the rows of empty seats and side tables. He looks up sharply as they enter.  
          “Welcome back,” Jacob says, stepping up and walking alongside them. He shares a look with Miranda, then says to Shepard, “I’m glad the Illusive Man convinced you to join us, ma’am.”  
          “I didn’t join Cerberus,” Shepard says tightly, bristling. It’s one thing to weather Miranda’s cold mistrust. But Jacob’s eager acceptance is worse, in some ways. “He asked me to investigate a colony – so I’m going to investigate a colony.”  
          They move into a hallway with long windows; beyond Shepard can see the rest of the station. Moving here and there are figures, glimpses of people through the other sections’ viewports. Even in the blackness of space, a few ships can be seen arriving and departing.  
          “You don’t trust Cerberus,” Jacob says.  
          “No.” Shepard says the word flatly. Miranda has no illusions to the truth, so there seems little point in hiding it further. As they pass she watches the activity beyond them with an open hunger. _People. There are people out there besides my two keepers._ Everyone on this station is undoubtedly Cerberus, but Shepard can’t help but hope.  
          “Do you trust me?” Jacob asks.  
          “I haven’t decided yet.”  
          “Good enough. Most Alliance soldiers hate Cerberus on principle.”  
          “The Illusive Man mentioned you were in the Alliance,” Shepard says, turning to him and narrowing her eyes. “How’d you end up on the other side?”  
          “The Alliance is a good group of people,” Jacob says. “I don’t deny it. But… they act too slowly. It just got worse after we joined the Council. Now every little thing that happens involves them. With Cerberus… they see people in trouble, and they act. They don’t have to get the Council’s approval just to help their own.”  
          “Help their own. Right,” Shepard says. “Where do the assassinations come in? The election rigging? Human experimentation –”  
          “Commander,” Miranda says politely. Without slowing her stride, she taps a command on her omni-tool. “Here, before I forget.”  
          Suddenly an orange glow alights around Shepard’s arm. She almost trips a step – her omni-tool’s hologram alights in its standard “glove” display. She stares at it, bewildered. _Now it wants to work?_ In a blink it changes to the screen above the length of her arm, running though data at a breakneck speed. Deep under the skin a heat begins to rise, to the point of discomfort.  
          “What – the hell?” She claps her other hand over the tool. It does not deactivate.  
          “We upgraded your omni-tool to the absolute latest model,” Miranda says over her shoulder. “There have been some fantastic breakthroughs the last two years, as I’m sure you can imagine. The personal account is the same, however – and you’ve got a two-year backlog of updates waiting.”  
          “Breakthroughs?” Shepard glances up.  
          “Alliance infiltrators have been given an updated set of tools as of a year ago,” Miranda says. “In addition to the standard hacking programs, it is now able to link with the user’s weapon and create an electric field that can overload kinetic shields. Tech grenades have been replaced by high-temperature plasma shells. Also…”  
          Miranda halts; they’ve reached the loading platform for their next trip. “The Alliance developed a highly-advanced method of light refraction, which renders the user nearly invisible for a short amount of time. It’s so cutting edge it hasn’t been officially announced, let alone authorized for use.”  
          “But I bet it’s loaded into my hardsuit,” Shepard says slowly. The heat in her arm begins to fade.  
          “We determined it would be helpful for an N7 infiltrator,” Miranda says, typing in a command and opening the door to their ship. “Compared to everything else we’ve done for you, acquiring the ‘tactical cloak’ program was practically nothing.”  
          Her self-satisfied tone makes it easy not to be grateful. _She’s talking about casually subverting Alliance R &D and taking prototype tech._ Not to mention that it meant Cerberus now owns this program too.  
          Shepard moves inside the ship and takes a seat, ignoring the Cerberus agents and opening the main menu of her omni-tool. Using her other hand, she scrolls though the options – she can still see the menu prompt to connect to the Normandy. Liara’s hand-made schedule waits to be opened.  
          The nostalgia beats inside her chest, beckons from another life. The urge to run, to escape – it’s stronger than ever. _The ‘tactical cloak’. They’re giving me a method to run away? Do they trust me not to abuse this? Miranda and the Illusive Man know my service history; I’m no Cerberus sympathizer._  
          Unless they don’t care.  
          Miranda had just admitted that they had access to top-secret Alliance developments. It was an uneasy secret that Cerberus had grown its spy network deep into Alliance military and galaxy politics. A spy network that the Alliance could never seem to control no matter how hard they tried.  
           _They don’t care if I run. Because there’s no place for me to go._  
          Her omni-tool beeps. Shepard looks down.  
          It’s asking her to verify an error. The log lists the ID code as 723.  
           _Error 723._  
          For a second Shepard’s back in that dreamlike state – there’s no way she’s seeing this. It’s either not real, or it’s not meant for her.  
          Error log code: 723 is the swan song of military-grade omni-tools, to be sent to Alliance comms. It was the last transmission before automatic full shutdown. It was meant to help with accurate records of battlefield casualties, and preventing others from having access to Alliance logs for too long. Hell, “723’ing” was slang among Alliance engineers for forcefully terminating programs or bugs.  
          It meant the user was recorded as deceased for a full twenty-four hours, Solar Standard Time.  
          Her omni-tool hadn’t activated back at the medical facility because it had completely shut itself down. But just now – it had accepted the command to reboot from Miranda. Once again receiving vitals from Shepard’s body, it reactivated to download two years of updates – and to notify her of the discrepancy.  
          All things considered, this is probably the easiest thing for Cerberus to fake. Take the microframe out of her arm for a day – the omni-tool will read nothing and shut down. Even in normal conditions, freak chance caused one or two to go dark on their own. But this, after everything else – it shreds the last bit of denial, leaving empty acceptance.  
           _I’m here from technology that shouldn’t exist. It’s been two years since the Normandy was attacked. I’m in custody of high-level Cerberus agents. I spoke to the Illusive Man._  
          Then that last thought, that brings with it a suffocating isolation. Not just distance of space, or distance of time. Distance of death.  
           _I died._


End file.
